Image: Jim Murphy of Scottish Labour during Scottish referendum campaign. PA Images, all rights reserved.
Today, Jeremy Corbyn will tell the Labour Party Conference gathered in Brighton that Labour is “ready to govern”. Spirits are high – perhaps a little too high. Despite the highest membership of any party in Europe, the biggest increase in its vote in a UK general election since 1945, and the most inept campaign in living memory by the Conservative Party, despite the self-congratulatory back-slapping and the now semi-mandatory chants of “Oh Jeremy Corbyn” that opened conference, Corbyn is not Prime Minister. Labour has earned the right to be taken seriously again – but it needs an additional 64 seats if its to form the next UK Government. And it cannot forever duck and dive on Brexit, hoping to concentrate on Tory divisions. This isn’t sustainable or serious politics at such a time of crisis.
Leadership cults and worship are never advisable. Imagine the Scottish Nats chanting the leaders name under Salmond or Sturgeon at her peak, or the Tories under the imperial reign of Thatcher?
